Home cooking can be a great way to enjoy delicious, healthy meals without having to leave the comfort of your own home. With a little time and effort, you can create delicious dishes that are both nutritious and satisfying. Nina Monique is a California native, self-taught home cook and mom who believes in fun + ease for all home chefs, no fuss recipes, dancing in the kitchen, and creating delicious recipes to share with her followers.
Nina Monique – (0:44) Alright. Hey guys, it’s your girl Nina Monique here with Recipe Remixx and today I am making baby food carrot cake cupcakes out of my family’s recipe book. Yes, you heard it – baby food carrot cake cupcakes that my grandma came up with years ago. She told my mom about it and now I’m sharing this easy and delicious recipe with you today. So let’s get started.
NM – (1:11) You start off with your three main dry ingredients. You’ve got your baking soda, sugar and some flour. Going to mix that up. Now let’s go and get those wet ingredients including the baby food. Now for the fun stuff. This has got two eggs beaten, a can of crushed pineapple, vanilla, cinnamon of course and two secret ingredients – applesauce which I use as a replacement for oil and baby food which we use as a replacement for carrots.
This is such a cool recipe. My grandma told me the story of her first time making this cake. She had a sweet tooth. She had all the kids over and they had a sweet tooth too. So she decided to make carrot cake. Sadly there were no carrots to be found so my grandma used baby food. But this worked perfectly fine. The flavor’s there and it’s gonna give you the bite and the sweetness that you like.
So beat eggs, two eggs, one can of that crushed pineapple. Perfect. Not one, but both of the baby foods. The applesauce is actually going to make it moist. You won’t even miss the oil, I promise. Here we go with a little bit of vanilla and some nuts. I love walnuts. Alrighty, let’s go ahead and give it a stir.
Look at that orange. Oh yeah, this is exactly what you want your batter to look like. Now let’s go ahead and add a dash of cinnamon. And alright, let’s go ahead and add these wet ingredients to the dry. Combine, combine, combine. Let it dance with you. There you go. Alright, I’ve already got a greased cupcake tin ready and willing to go into a hot 375-degree oven. We’re gonna go ahead and pour in about two-thirds of the way our mixture and bake for 25 minutes.
NM – (3:42) Now my favorite part of the cupcakes… it’s the cream cheese frosting. This is absolutely a steal. It’s delicious and it only has a few ingredients. Confectioner’s sugar or powdered sugar, softened butter and softened cream cheese and a little bit of vanilla, all of these things together are going to make the perfect creamy and savory, delicious frosting.
So let’s go ahead and put our vanilla in here. Just eyeball it, about a tablespoon, and you’re going to want to start whipping this softened cream cheese and butter first before you add the sugar. Go ahead and start adding that sugar just a little at a time. Alright, looks like we’re getting there.
My favorite part is taking a little bit of a taste… mmmmmm, it tastes like Grandma’s cooking. This is that icing. We’re gonna go ahead and let it cool off in the fridge. The cupcakes are in the oven baking and while we’re waiting, it’s time for a little dance break.
NM – (5:04) Alright guys, we are back and as you can see, we have three generations of family here in the kitchen. I have my son helping us frost these delicious baby food carrot cake cupcakes and my beautiful mom who actually told me all about the recipe and allowed me to lick the spoon when I was his age. So now go ahead and let Grandma try the muffin.
Baby Food Carrot Cake recipe from Nina’s family cookbook:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 jars (4.5 ounces each baby food strained carrots)
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapples drained
2/3 cup coconut (optional)
1/2 cups chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
Frosting:
1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups confectioner’s sugar (powder sugar)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients. Add carrots, oil, eggs, and vanilla, pineapples, coconut and nuts. Pour into a greased 9×13 cake pan. Bake 35-45 minutes until done. Insert toothpick, check for doneness.
To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until fluffy. Add confectioner’s sugar (powder sugar). Mix until smooth. Ice cake with frosting and serve. Yields 8-10 servings.
